Taxons, And What To Capitolise

[The-Wolf]

I know the genus is supposed to be written with a capitalised first letter and that species shouldn't be
but what about all the others?
Domain, Kingdom, Phylum/Subphylum, Class/Subclass, Order/Suborder, Family/Subfamily
should they be as I've written, with a capitol, or not?
and where does superorder, infraorder, epifamily Et al fit in to it all?

 

[nmonks]

The-Wolf,

All formal taxa are capitalised with the sole exception of species names (and subspecies names, if used). Hence: Animalia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Mammalia, Felidae; Felis; catus = Felis catus, the house cat. Subspecies names are also lower case, hence Felis silvestris libyca is the African wild cat, by contrast with the European wild cat Felis silvestris silvestris.

The above is true for animal names and fossil names. Things may be slightly different for plants and bacteria, which have their own rules. But I cannot speak with authority on them!

Normally, informal taxa are not capitalised. These are the collective names based on taxa (such as: crustacean, based on Crustacea; or hominid, based on Hominidae).

Common names are typically -- but not universally -- not capitalised. I was certainly taught not to in my undergraduate degree in zoology. But some publishers of scientific and popular journals capitalise common names. To take one example close to our hearts, the British magazine PFK (inconsistently as far as I can tell) capitalises common names, i.e., Neon Tetra. By contrast, TFH does not, and explicitly tells authors not to do so. The argument made by advocates of "capitalised common names" is that it makes it clearer what species are being discussed. In a scientific paper, the italicisation for species makes them stand out in a body of text; in a popular article, common names are used, and capitalising them makes them stand out instead.

Cheers, Neale

 

[Underwurlde]

Good stuff there Neal!

Also, what about italics.... I see you've used italics there. Is that out of habit or done for a reason?

Andy

 

[nmonks]

Andy --

Italics are only used for the genus and species name. Hence Pterophyllum scalare is italicised, but Cichlidae is not. Muddling this up is very common in the non-scientific literature!

You don't italicise trade names, catalogue numbers, or the "sp"/"spp" after a genus name. Hence Pseudotropheus 'Mbembe Deep', Panaque sp. L027c, and so on.

This is precisely the same as in gardening, where varieties and hybrids are italicised, just the genus, thus: Rosa 'Diana, Princess of Wales' is the variety of rose named after Princess Di.

I'm not quite sure why genus and species names are italicised at all. Presumably to make them stand out on a page, but I don't know for certain. When writing things out by hand, scientists obviously can't italicise their handwriting, so instead they underline the genus and species name, thus: Pterophyllum scalare. But that's a printing convention rather than something specific to science; underlining something on a hand-written manuscript is apparently how you tell a printer to italicise it. Someone who works in publishing may know more about this.

Cheers, Neale

 

[The-Wolf]

thanks for that Neale how about answering the other bit
(where does superorder, infraorder, epifamily Et al fit in to it all?)

 

[nmonks]

The "super" prefix means that the grouping is a step above the taxon rank that makes the second part of the word. Hence a "superclass". For us here, the most important superclass is the Osteichthyes, a grouping that includes two classes, the Actinopterygii (or ray-finned fishes) and the Sarcopterygii (or lobe-finned fishes).

The "sub" prefix puts the grouping a step below the taxon rank that makes the second part of the word. For example, within the class Mammalia there are at least two subclasses, the Prototheria (egg-laying mammals) and Theria (live-bearing mammals).

The "infra" prefix puts the grouping two steps below the taxon rank part of the word. So within the Theria there are at least two infraclasses, the Metatheria (marsupials) and Eutheria (placental mammals).

It's important to realise that these rankings and words are designed on the fly. They don't "mean" anything in terms of size or importance. People create them as required, primarily to make it easier to divide up groups of organisms into logical chunks on the basis of particular characters or evolutionary history. So you can have one subclass that's enormous and filled with lots of diversity, and another that's tiny and just contains the one species. Taking the example of the Prototheria and the Theria, you have one group with less than half a dozen species (the Prototheria) and another with thousands of species (the Theria).

Moreover, the more detail we learn about the evolution of life and about diversity, the more groupings we need to pigeonhole things. Hence groups like microphylum and megafamily as well as accessory formal groupings such as cohort, tribe, etc. get created. None of these are mandatory when you are describing a new species, and they're largely ignored except by super-specialists studying very specific groups of organisms.

Cheers, Neale

 

[The-Wolf]

as always, a great answer Neale. Thanks

 

[steelhealr]

Indeed a great answer althought (cough)..it belongs in chat area...BUT..maybe THIS should be pinned HERE. ? SH

 

[The-Wolf]

Indeed a great answer although (cough)..it belongs in chat area...BUT..maybe THIS should be pinned HERE. ? SH

why?
as I've already said to Will, what is the scientific section for if not to discuss the proper way of writing scientific names?
oh and Will left the thread here, so it stays yes?

 

[jourdy288]

Also, the system of two names is called Binominal nomenclature, instituted by Carrolus Linneaus.